If you look at the worm’s hijacking of my post in an attempt to make himself look rational (when he is in fact being poisonous and making assumptions at MY expense, when I haven’t been arrested for attacking anyone), and his subsequent attempt at appearing ‘professional’ and resentful of the unwelcome familiarity of which he himself is guilty… I think I was being kind even to respond to the trash. Honestly, some people on here are total psychopaths… but they console themselves that they use the right mealy-mouthed language and have a carbon footprint of just the right size. Makes me laugh.

Firstly, we have no idea if the assailants are from a deprived background. Secondly, we have no idea if they have previous convictions or not – which would be significant in a sentencing decision by the courts. Thirdly, there appears to be aggravating factors of potential pre-planning given the number involved in the assault etc
Lets hope the DC and her colleagues are able to identify those responsible, the CPS agree to prosecution and the courts reach an appropriate verdict leading to appropriate penalty.
Lets also hope we find ways to tackle indiscriminate violence in society particularly those episodes motivated by hatred.

Neither myself who suggested a large group in a co-ordinated attack (which may or may not be the case) nor burningworm who commented on the prevalence of people walking around in groups made any reference to race. I agree if the allegations in this case are substantiated then there may be a race element to it – we don’t know enough to judge yet – but this particular case does not mean that groups are necessarily all black nor does it mean that race was an aggravating factor in this incident.
You seem to be the only person (at the moment) jumping to these conclusions

Stu, unless you know different, these are the reported FACTS:
…
“when they were set upon by a gang of between eight and ten black males.” What part of black is white for you? Where is the grey area?

It is more than likely that there is a homophobic AND racial element to this attack. I am allowed to offer an opinion just like anybody else, based on existing data available on these types of attacks.

I think it is incredibly short sighted as Enoch’s racism clearly clouds his logic.
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Would it not be fair to say that in areas where the population is largely black that the proportion of those numbers committing crimes would be black people just as in most of the country largely populated by white people crimes are committed by white people.
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It is stupid to make up this racism to suit your childish self to prove a pathetic point.
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Far from this actually being a homophobic attack are you suggesting that a homophobic attack by a black person in London is worse than a homophobic attack in Derby or Liverpool by a white person.
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I ask because by your reckoning you only focus on those attacking according to the colour of their skin but ain’t you leaving out 1 major detail?
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What about the frackin victim? Do you ever focus so much on the victim?

No words of support for the gay men who were assaulted, seriously injured, and robbed then?
Why not just come out and support the perpetrators?
Talk about denial!
People with your attitude always screaming the race card make me sick!

Score 1. I asked Stu yesterday on another thread to look out for the people who mistreat gays. I claimed that they usually belonged to only three groups (Muslim, Christian and black male), and that I wanted him to call me out whenever they didn’t. I like Stu, but I guess he won’t be calling me out today.

Score 1? How old are you fella….
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Pathetic.
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Are you to ignore that anybody of any race, colour, orientation commit crimes.
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The fact you consider a violent attack on two men just reason to score points make you a very sick person.
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Shame on you.

You know Enoch, with your racism you kind of bring it on yourself.
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Society would do better without your disgusting attitude.
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There is no excuse for racism and the fact you seem to think this page is justification for you to spew makes you a complete low-life.

No, Jock. It’s not racism. I don’t belong to the BNP or the EDL, or to any other ideologically based group of sub-humans. Even the name Enoch is used ironically, and in full anticipation of pea-brains like James-with-an-eclamation-mark-but-no-penis. But we can’t MAKE things so just because we WANT them to be so. The statistical fact is that globally speaking we are more likely to be discriminated against, attacked or killed by a member of one of these three groups:
1) Christians
2) Muslims
3) Black men
You can wish that there was a Santa Claus, but it won’t conjure him into existence. I WANT everyone to be equal in both their rights and their responsibilities. But so long as people like you (who should know better) make excuses for some groups in society, you are making their right to attack a protected right.
Sorry, I don’t have enough self-hatred to go along with that.

You’re clearly a misguided individual who should know better but your comments are racist and I am ashamed for you.
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That attitude gets nowhere and I imagine you are either BNP or even EDL supporter even as you try to convince us your not.
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Fact is I don’t use the term frequently, having a black partner of 18 years I have to succome to his wishes to idiots like you and your snide remarks to your full on racism.
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Well thats it, you really ain’t worthy of my time but I will say I am disgusted by you.
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Take a hint, get some meaning into your life and further more Get a life and stop nicking everyone elses.

Its not really any of your business though is it…
What IS your business – is taking responsibility for the brainless racist drivel you’ve been spouting on this thread.
You’re clearly attention seeking.
Now what confuses me is why someone would revel in that kind of attention…

In the first place, there is as yet no evidence as far as I know to indicate this was a homophobic attack as opposed to a mugging.
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Just out of curiosity Enoch, did you score yourself -1 when Michael Causer was murdered in 2008 (to use just one notorious example)?

Hi Rehan. I wasn’t keeping score back then. At least, not consciously. It’s not that I want to be proved right or wrong (although I’ll take that minus score, if you want) – I just don’t want for us to be society’s ultimate scapegoat (which is what we are and will be for the foreseeable future). People like poor Michael Causer ARE the victims of attackers outside of the three main guilty groups I list, but let’s not pretend we don’t know how those attackers arrived at the conclusion that gay people are somewhat less than human. And let’s stop making excuses for them!

Enoch, if you’re saying (as I think you are) that the homophobic attitudes of brutes who wouldn’t identify themselves as religious come from social/tribal attitudes inherited from organised religion, you may have a point – but it’s a fairly stretched one. I don’t mean in any way to be an apologist for organised religion, but it’s worth remembering that at least three 20c ideological movements – N@zism and Russian and Chinese communism – were as hostile to religion as they were to homosexuality (OK, maybe not at first in Russia but let’s not split hairs).

@Enoch
Its nice to have a fan – gee thanks. Indeed in your challenge of yesterday (which I was not able to have any influence over in any direction!) what you predicted is indeed apparently true – although at this stage they are allegations.
I would clarify that your views that most homophobes are either black or Chrsitain or Muslim (or a combination) is wrong. We can all pick individual cases and trade them but I find the way you present your case to infer that all black people etc are homophobic and I find that offensive (as a white man)

The difference between me and you is that you are meticulous in the way that you gather facts, and you’re a nicer person who wants to believe the best about people, and that there is a constructive way forward. I, on the other hand, feel that with some groups we are banging our head against the wall. Whether it’s more education we need I’m not sure. Having gay characters on Coronation Street – watched largely by women and gay men – is not conducive to reaching those who are prepared to legislate against or even just cosh us. It’s likely that in the next couple of years we’re going to go backward rather than forward in terms of acceptance. And I have never stated that all black men are homophobic. But that group produces more than its fair share of homophobes. As do committed Christians and Muslims. Sad but true.

Stonewall/Equality Commission – This is more about the views of the EHRC and how they tackle equality than specific homophobia or religious malice (at this time) and certainly the only person I can see bringing race into these stories is you

That may be your opinion but its neither accurate or grounded in fact.

As for the black issue – tenuous, but not the main issue – and you seem to jump on the black issue on all the stories whether it is a main focus or a tenuous link.

I am more than happy with my propriety. I have apologised in the past where I have been approached and accused of intolerance (based on race or other factors) where I have been misinterpreted or where I have not made myself clear. However, you keep pushing your comments which are perceived by many to be racist and your only response is “I am not racist” and to continue the same comments (with no moderation or change of emphasis or acceptance of an alternative view) and say “Its fact” – thats what they used to say in South Africa under de Klerk.

Bless you but claiming this attack as some kind of victory is kinda twisted
Its terrible that they were attacked.
I also think that there is no reason for having the race of the men involved listed in the opening paragraph except for reasons of racism.
If the article were asking people to come forward and identify or find these men in question then it would be entirely appropriate to mention their race along with other identifying features later on in the article.
I hope the men who were attacked make a speedy recovery.

As black men are responsible for most street crime, including 75 per cent of all mobile phone robberies (Source: Met Police figures quoted in The Sunday Times), there is no reason why their ethnicity should not be posted.
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Or are you one of those people that thinks that “they’re like that because the white man did it to them”?

@ Hamish. Most articles of this nature do give an idea of the perpetrators’/perpetrator’s ethnic group.
James, you’re not going to find a black boyfriend just by becoming hysterical and adding an exclamation mark to your name.

Right James I agree that racism is terrible and Enoch I think your a racist so stop bit<hing at me and calm yourself down, your way of arguing is neither productive or actually going to change anyone's mind. Facts figures and reasonable debate will trust me

James is intellectually incapable of anything. And I’m not a racist, otherwise I would have singled out Americans, or Spanish, or Indians or whatever in my posts. Islam and Christianity are not races, Hamish. And year on year, 58% of arrests for robbery are of black males – that’s not an overwhelming majority, but it is a disproportionate one. If the disproportion was due to Chinese or Greeks or Indians, wouldn’t anybody say? Why is this one group exempt from the same consideration as the rest of the human race? Why is it always on its knees with a weapon in its hand? What proportion of black males do you think DON’T hate us? Sorry to sound strident, but it seems like we’re all avoiding talking about the elephant droppings in the room.

Islam and Christianity may not be a race but its still discrimination so regardless of faithist or religionist or even thoseguysist, its still a form of discrimination which as a gay man you should know better to avoid

This is the debating level at Pink News, which appears to have been hijacked by the most self-hating queens anywhere. It is not racist to suggest – as shown by statistics – that we are most at risk from Christians (baptists, Catholics, evangelicals, etc. – Quakers and similar sub-sects arent such a problem), Muslims and black men. Why is this such a problem for you? It is fact.
.
And James I have no doubt that you are a retard. Morally, physically, and academically. That’s why you’re on here all day trying to be the spandex police.

Okay, Stu. Just use your own eyes, and scan as many scources as possbile when you’re on the net in the next couple of weeks. You’ll see for yourself where hatred for homosexuals tends to emanate from. I’ll be happy for you to prove me wrong.

Although it would only be circumstantial evidence and not proof, I will try your challenge and see what happens …

I would suggest that there is a great deal of difference between level of crime and fear of crime – perception. Real crime levels are about events that actually occur or are reported whilst perception is about fear and is informed by emotions and is a subjective viewpoint. In the same way there is a real level of homophobia (whether or not reported and I accept it is massively underreported) and a fear and one is based on actual events and the other subjective.

I agree. I don’t believe the country has reached a crime crisis point, and there are variations, as you suggest. There’s a difference, say, between your boss making a comment about you after you leave the room, and not inviting you to the Christmas party… a difference between excluding you from work events, and a group of mates and him daubing obscenities on your garden wall after a drunken night out. I don’t want to police anyone’s thoughts, or what they think and do in their churches, or snooker clubs or mosques. What I object to is the same groups popping up again and again when there is a definite and unacceptable instance of discrimination or abuse towards us as a group. In the case of black men, it’s particularly heartbreaking when you consider how many of US there were on THEIR side when they were fighting for THEIR freedoms… and how few freedoms they HAD until recently. It’s soul-destroying to see the victim become the oppressor.

Well The Sunday Times couldn’t possibly be making up something as ‘important’ as that could they?
(aren’t they also owned by defender of the faith Murdoch?)
You didn’t say where The Sunday Times said that The Met had said these mobile phone robberies had taken place though…..
(id be happier looking at those kind of figures myself before bandying about Murdoch inspired ‘facts’ as ‘evidence’ of anything other than Murdoch’s desire to convince everyone of anything unrelated to a) the ‘truth’ or b) ‘reasonable debate’)

Anyone who chooses to walk there at 1.40am on a Sunday morning (no doubt after taking drink and/or drugs) and most probably fiddling with their iPhones, not aware in the slightest of their surroundings, really does deserve to get set upon, by what would have been people already in the area, just sitting and waiting. Fools!

“….really does deserve to get set upon”
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Seriously?
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One you make assumptions, unfounded may I add but even if they had had a drink so what, that doesn’t entitle people to be attacked.
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You assume they were ‘fiddling with their iPhones’ yet what proof.
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The attackers stole bags and coats.
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No one deserves to be attacked no matter where and when and all your doing if justifying the attackers with a ‘fvck the victims’ attitude which I have to say is disgusting.
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That you would justify people being attacked is all that is wrong with this country. How about some compassion for the victim for a change?

The gay community men and women need to have their own private weapons, they need to get and purchase guns and peppers spray, you need to take this pepper spray with you on your outing with your families and any hetersexual person lunging attacks your way you need to pepper spray, these colored thugs must be arrested just like the white thug klans need to be arrested immediatly so people need to start reporting any inicidents on the behalf of others and helping make arrests of terrorist and abusers of women and gay families, and others victimized by violence of hatred and malishiousness, women need to start carrying pepper spray also becasue of sexual assault, hetersexual men and boys are our nations number one problem and danger threat to everyone, people need to start carrying their own weapons and get the weapons out of the hands of hetersexual men and boys , the boys are being

‘Guns’………? lol
I take it you’re not from these here parts then ‘Carrie’…?
I do think it would be useful for gay men and women to learn self-defence – but guns and pepper sprays?
Honestly?!
There’s something about the notion of ‘guns and pepper sprays’ which just screams ‘I’M SCARED OF YOU’ which is not in itself the best defence in these situations….

lgbt families need to start carrying pepper spray if they are dealing with out hater in thier communites, take it with you to your gay clubs and other outing find other weapons, you need guns in your familiy areas and home where there are hate crimes being committed , you defend self defense, along with the arrests being made , the herersexual men haters are causing all of these problems their jealousy and intimadtion of these families, they want to have sex with all of them and cant take the fact that there are people who dont want them in that way and they hate their happy familiy that like each other and get along so well with out people like them , they hate it. so they cause trouble but you self defend your famioies along with making arrrests, these monsters are eevery bodies problem

However this article was worded, it just reinforces what many people already know. Black people complain they are subjected to more stop and searches by the police; I wonder why? Would it be that a disproportionate amount are criminal? Would it be that they cause the majority of gun and knife crime? Or maybe more robberies and burglaries are by black people? Or would it be simply the police are “institutionally racist”? The words “Room” and “Elephant” spring to mind.

@Spanner: which came first, the chicken or the egg? If you’re treated as a potential threat and probable criminal from childhood simply by virtue of the colour of your skin, would you have the strength to reverse people’s expectations?
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Stop and search – yes, I recall that wonderful incident when the police stopped a middle-aged black man, near London Bridge I think it was, because he was driving a Jaguar: the then Bishop of Stepney, now the Archbishop of York.

Equally, stop and search is a useful tool in the police armoury in protecting us all. It has been abused in the past – but also complaints about process have been abused by those complaining.

One example, and I agree it is in one sense serious (in another humerous) does not demonstrate the failure of the system. How many arrests and successful prosecutions in England & Wales result from a successful and appropriate stop and search? I don’t currently have figures but there are hundreds if not thousands each year.

We need to stop condemning the tool but the tactics in which they have been used.

I do accept that some “sus” stop and searches have been inappropriate. I do also accept that if the victim tells the police they were robbed by a black male – a black male is more likely to be stopped in the immediate area if there are other descriptive factors that link.

Of course you’re right Stu, it’s not the tool itself but the way it is/was used.
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I recall reading that Trevor Phillips too had to downgrade his Jaguar to a less conspicuous model because of the number of times he was stopped in it (a few years ago). If any white British man had to do the same I for one haven’t heard of it.

disproportionate amount to where?
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Where is this disproportionate amount being compared to?
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Are you comparing to cities where there tends to be a much large multicultural community to other areas where most crimes are carried out by white people?
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How do you come to these figures?
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Have you considered that whilst there is no excuse for any crime there is a problem with attitudes such as Enochs and Spanners with contribute to crime levels?

No – what it reinforces – for all the reasons I listed above is that if you put the perceived race of a suspect (or in this case a group of suspects) all that does is fuel prejudice and ungrounded fear.
Had the article done the sensible thing and placed it at the end along with a description if the police were looking for these people, then it would have made sense.
As it is it just fuels the knee-jerk prejudices of the people reading it who believe that all black people are out to get them and hate gay people.
In truth the article states that the Police don’t believe the attack was homophobic as nothing was said by the attackers to indicate that was an issue.
Not one of the ‘its the black people wot dunnit’ brigade on here has put forward any realistic data – everything they’ve said is based on here-say and conjecture.
Enoch’s assertion that The Sunday Times has released information (which clearly chimes in with his own prejudices) doesn’t in any way inform his debate either.
I

Someone attacks somebody else and they are not trash? Anyone thinking that they are not needs to get their heads read. You try being attacked for being gay and then see if your attacker isn’t just misunderstood….

It was Vauxhall
It was after midnight
Let’s get real
People who walk the streets of South London in the small hours get robbed.
People who are tucked up in bed at those times tend to avoid late night muggings.

Have walked around Vauxhall in the early hours on many a night … (not for a few months but thats geographic rather than fear) and at no point have I been threatened, robbed or assaulted.
Thats more of a fear of crime which you are perpetuating rather than (in my perception) a reality that by going to Vauxhall after midnight means you will get assaulted. As you put it, get real …

@Michelangelo lol no they don’t!
what is wrong with you people?
SOME people SOMETIMES are victims of crime – it does NOT happen ALL the time to ALL the people.
It’s like you’re all living in a parallel universe of fear and twisted perception.
I suggest you all start reading new newspapers and getting out more – cause hiding away cowering in your beds for fear of the wolves outside your door is complete and utter nonsensical bollocks

Cities are becoming increasingly unsafe for glbt people it seems given that hate crime is on the rise. Problem is that everyone knows where the gay districts are; increased visibility means lgbt are an easier target cos they know where you live (if you see what I mean). I think it may actually be safer these days to live in smaller communities where ppl know you and look out for you and there is no specifically gay area that perpetrators can easily target.

This is not true, people – we are in danger of becoming scared of our own shadows.
Yes there are crimes committed in cities – some of which will happen to LGBT people. The answer is not to hide away.
The FEAR of crime is usually WAY bigger than the actual incidence of crime.
People should look at proper figures rather than running around like headless chickens believing every bit of nonsense spouted by reactionary right-wingers fed on a daily diet of Murdoch’s self-interested shot-stirring bollocks.

Entirely endorse everything that Staircase2 has said in this posting. I personally also think that the perpetuation of the fear of crime by those scaremongering is even more dangerous and endemic than the reality of crime (as horrendous as that can be to some people)

You may have information to which I am not party, but my understanding is that the investigating officer has sought the support of the gay press in seeking potential witnesses due to the proximity of the alleged assault to several gay venues – not necessarily because of the motivation (that may not be the case but thats my reading of it).

Indeed Will.
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It’s a bit like when people say “I’m mad me” or “I’m kinky I am” or “I’m normal me”…
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All say it to convince people when in fact they usually are the most boring people on the planet.
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I mean these people are just trying to convince themselves coz everyone else sees through them.
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Hence Jim.

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